Improvement in balancing the gates of turbine water-wheels



. A. K. MANSFIELD.

Balancing the Gates of Turbine Water-Wheels. No.157,52 9. PatentedDec.8,1874.

Vl i'tnesses: Inventor wbzkm THE GRAPHIC CO. PHOTO-LITH 3B&4-I PAR K PLACEHQX.

UNITED STATES PATENT OEEIcE.

ALBERT K. MANSFIELD, OF BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS.

IMPROVEMENT IN BALANCING THE GATES OF TURBINE WATER-WHEELS.

Specification forming part of Letters Patent No. 157,529, dated December 8, 1874; application filed September 28, 1874.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, ALBERT K. MANSFIELD, of Boston, Massachusetts, have invented Improvements in Balancing the Gates of Turbine Water-Wheels, of which the following is a specification My invention consists in so making the gates of turbine water-wheels as to balance the same by reducing the pressure which tends to close them.

In the drawing, Figure l is a vertical sec tion through the axis of the gate, with the parts adjoining. Fig. 2 is a partial plan of the same. i

A A B B is the gate, made in one piece with the guides O O O, 850. These guides are for the purpose of guiding the water to strike the wheel (not shown in the drawing) tangentially. The gate closes upward, the guides rising into the guide-chamber I) D. Eis a curb, to which the gate is fitted, and on which it slides up and down. 7

The usual method of making gates of this I kind has been as shown in section in Fig. 3,

the ring B being placed on the extreme inside of the gate.

The advantages of the change I have made are as follows: When the water is flowing rapidly between the guides, the top surface A A of the gate is relieved from a great part of the pressure due the head, according to the principle that water flowing through an orifice of the shape of the contracted vein exerts little or no pressure against the sides of the orifice. The bottom part of the gate, however, is subjected to the entire pressure due the head, which acts, when the gate is made as in Fig.

3, on an area equal to the'entirc horizontal projection of the disk A A. When made as shown in Fig. 1, however, since the fit between B and E is water-tight, the pressure on the under part of the gate is only that acting on the horizontal projection of the part a b of the disk A. e

It will thus be evident that the pressure upward may be made as little as we choose by placing the ring B correspondingly near the outer circumference of the disk A. In this way we make the pressure upward. approximately the same as that downward, or enough greater to balance the weight of the gate. Thus a complete hydraulic balance is obtained, which makes the gate easy to operate, and allows us to make the mechanism for operating tie same verylight.

This arrangement may be applied to gates closing downward as well as upward, and to similar gates in any other branch ofhydraulics.

N0 mechanism is shown in the drawing for raising and lowering the gate, since my invenlion is entirely independent of the manner in which the gate is raised and lowered. The gate may be operated by any of the methods in use for similar gates.

I claim as my invention- The combination of the disk A with the r ng B and curb E, the inner diameter of the ring B being made greater than the inner diameter of the disk A, in order to effect the purpose described.

ALBERT K. MANSFIELD. Witnesses:

RoET. A. SHAILER, HORACE MOMURTRIE. 

